Jane Smiley - Golden Age

“I’m quicker,” said Loretta, and Andy saw that, though this might be a possibility that she herself was only thinking of now, Loretta had reckoned with it for a long time — her matter-of-fact tone told Andy that she had strategies in place. She said, hesitantly, “I don’t know that you can rely on that.”

Then Loretta said the reassuring thing—“I haven’t had to so far”—and Andy found herself taking a deep breath. Had she really gone for so long without asking herself what Michael was capable of? But maybe that was what mothers were supposed to do. The conversation couldn’t go on after that; they both put their handbags on the table, and Andy said, “Shall we?” and Loretta said, “I really like what we’ve chosen. You’re parked in that garage on Fifty-eighth Street, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to walk me over there. It’s only a block.” And then, she had to admit, she fled.

—

THE POLLS LOOKED GOOD: Kevin Moore still had a problem with name recognition. Richie suspected that the problem was the “Kevin.” Once you thought “Kevin,” whatever came next fell away, whereas “Richard” was like “Mister”—it pointed at whatever followed. And “Rick” hardly existed at all. Even so, in the weeks before the convention at Madison Square Garden, the smart commentators predicted disaster for the Democrats. Clinton and Gore were marginally okay (in fact, whenever Clinton started talking, his poll numbers went up word by word, only to drop after he fell silent) but Hillary was a worry. Operation Rescue threatened to make a fuss about abortion; the Women’s Action Coalition threatened to make a bigger fuss about choice.

When Richie looked around the convention hall the first night, though, he knew everything would be fine. It was filled, not with regular, cynical, bored functionaries, but with women, blacks, Hispanics, people in wheelchairs and with canes — all sorts of people who never thought they would see the day they could cast their vote and nominate the next president. The enthusiasm told Richie (and Congressman Scheuer told him, too) that almost everyone in the Garden, shouting, screaming, laughing, waving posters, was experiencing him- or herself, at last and maybe for the first time, as a power broker. Congressman Scheuer said that it was a fine way to go out and a fine way to come in. And he clapped Richie on the shoulder as if he were dubbing him with a sword.

As a delegate, Richie’s job was to applaud, cheer, give information, and be a helpful public servant. He handed out a few “We Love Cuomo” signs so the New York delegation could cheer Cuomo’s nominating speech. He stood respectfully during the movie about the governor, whistled and shouted when the governor came onto the podium, made sure to stand up straight when the TV cameras turned toward him. And then he actually listened to the speech and was affected by it—“Nearly a whole generation surrendered in despair….They are our children.” Richie could not help thinking of Leo. “This is more than a recession! Our economy has been weakened fundamentally by twelve years of conservative Republican supply-side policies.” Of course, Richie could not fail to hear, in a corner of his brain, Michael laughing about outsourcing jobs, and Loretta saying, in her self-righteous way, “They don’t have any right to those jobs!” and then Ivy saying, “She doesn’t have any right to that ranch,” but only to him, in bed, after Michael and Loretta had gone home. “In no time at all, we have gone from the greatest seller nation, the greatest lender nation, the greatest creditor nation, to today, the world’s largest buyer, the world’s largest borrower, the world’s largest debtor nation. That is Republican supply-side.”

Richie had met the governor several times, and, like everyone, found him attractive, but now he felt the man’s words engraving themselves into his brain — words that he would use in his own campaign against Kevin. “This time we cannot afford to fail to deliver the message…The ship is headed toward the rocks!” And then he made a joke about the invisible hand of the market that everyone cheered, and Richie learned from him the whole time. “Prayer is always a good idea!” Only Richie laughed at that, since he had never prayed in his life. Richie had to admire the man’s flurry of great lines—“Bush said, ‘We have the will, but not the wallet!’ ” and he followed that with a reminder of the savings-and-loan bailout—“All of a sudden, the heavens opened and out of the blue, billions of dollars appeared, not for children, not for jobs, not for drug treatment or the ill or for health care, but hundreds of millions of dollars to bail out failed savings and loans.” Richie stopped gaping and glanced around. The cameras were on Cuomo, not him, but he did not want to look stupid, though in fact he felt stupid: he had agreed to run for Congress, and just now he realized that he was not prepared, in spite of all of his years of working for the congressman and watching him decide this and decide that, vote on this, vote on that, give this quote and that quote. He felt a trembling in the back of his neck, because he was not a deep thinker, an A student, a well-trained military man, or even a lawyer. He was in the right place at the right time with the right look and the right vocal timbre and the right connections. The congressman had often said, over the years, that Richie had a “knack for this stuff,” and maybe he did, because more often than not he could talk someone into something, but just at this moment, when he was watching the governor roll to a climax, he felt like he knew less and less, right down to nothing. The governor finished his speech to rousing applause; Richie yelled, clapped, whistled. A young woman from the office grabbed his hand, and the congressman gave him the thumbs-up. He was being taken upon the flood into the Congress, too young, too green, too stupid, but of course he would not stop it.

—

JANET KNEW, rationally, that if she’d had Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems when Emily was a baby, Emily would be a different person, but even so, and even though she’d read the book three times and nearly memorized it, putting the method into practice scared her. It seemed like a test, but not, say, a math test — rather, a driving test, dangerous and demanding. But Jared, who was hard to annoy, was almost annoyed because Jonah, nine months old, was still waking up to nurse at 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., and lately he was brighter — more interested in people and toys, and crawling all over the place — so it was harder to put him down at night. The whole time he was nursing before bed, his eyes would roll toward whatever sound he heard, whatever else might be happening. He was a curious boy, active. Jared said getting him to sleep through the night was now or never, and Janet didn’t disagree with him. But.

The moment she knew they were committed was when, after she nursed him on the couch (instead of his bedroom), she sat him up and kissed him a few times (instead of easing him, sleeping, into his crib), then took him over to Jared, who was watching TV, and to Emily, who was reading The Chronicle of the Horse , for a good-night kiss. They were kind and supportive, as if Jonah were heading out into the wilderness with a secret message that he had to deliver to rebel forces all by himself. Then she carried him upstairs and into his room, laid him down, kissed him good night, covered him, and walked out without thinking about whether he might grab the top railing of the crib and launch himself, or whether she should have solved his sleep problems months ago.

The crying started after about a minute, first whimpers of disbelief, then shouts and wails. At three minutes, she went in, gave him a kiss, noted that he was still lying down, and walked out. After another five minutes, she did this again. The technique prescribed that she should then wait ten minutes, but she could only manage eight. She went in. Jonah stared up at her, his mouth open in horror, the whimpers ululating into shouts. He held out his arms. Janet spoke much more firmly and cheerily than she felt. “Good night, sweetie! Time to go to sleep.” She patted his forehead, let her hand linger there; he was a beautiful child, with large, bright eyes, thick hair, and full lips. Then she turned and walked out, closing the door. Three minutes after that, the crying stopped abruptly, and she tiptoed down the stairs, exhausted. Jared’s show was still on, Emily was still reading The Chronicle . Twenty minutes seemed like two hours.